Automation changes future job market, PA labor secretary tells Hazleton chamber
Apr. 23—Sheila Ireland grasps the implications for workers when she looks at fast food restaurants.
"Talk about what McDonald's looks like ... You can automate everything from ordering and self-service. They've already introduced automated burger flipping," Ireland, a deputy secretary of labor for Pennsylvania, said. She advised workers to sharpen their skills during a breakfast meeting with the Greater Hazleton Chamber of Commerce on Thursday.
Workforce training, Ireland said, has to move past preparing people for jobs doing "routine, non-cognitive work."
Her call for workers to get smarter to ensure stable careers in the future contrasts with the current situation. Personnel managers of large companies in Hazleton area industrial parks can't fill jobs in factories and warehouses even while boosting wages.
"It's almost war stories we were hearing," said Chamber President Mary Malone, relating talk from a job fair that her group hosted a month ago. Workers receiving extended unemployment benefits bypass jobs paying more than $15 an hour, so those still working get pressed into longer hours, which raises safety and health concerns.
Ireland told her that the pandemic created a "perfect storm" with businesses closing, people worrying about dying from COVID-19 and workers opting out if they had the wherewithal to stay home.
In the future, companies will compete for workers not just with wages but through diversity and by "creating a culture where people feel like their contribution makes a difference."
State Rep. Tarah Toohil, R-116, Butler Twp., said she is trying to get vaccinations for workers in plants where the largest outbreaks of COVID-19 occurred a year ago when the Hazleton area emerged as a hotspot for the virus.
"They were our first, the hardest hit. Obviously many are a minority population," Toohil said. "When you're working all day, it's very hard to get a mask on and go out and wait or sit on the phone" for an appointment.
Ireland said when the pandemic recedes, "We will need to ramp up quickly on training to compete."
In the past five months, the Labor Department made available $18 million for grants for worker training and development that Ireland publicized.
"Every room I'm in people (say) 'We didn't know. We didn't know,'" she said.
For apprenticeships, the Labor Department in December administered $6.7 million and just announced $87.5 million in grants plus the Biden administration has earmarked $100 million.
"Learn and earn is so very attractive in this post-pandemic environment," Ireland said.
Toohil expects a revolution in education with colleges becoming cheaper and offering set prices for degree programs while high school students receive better information on careers.
"We are going to start connecting you to the jobs that are actually out there," Toohil said.
Contact the writer: kjack son@standardspeaker.com; 570-501-3587
